Undercurrents

by Mary Anna Evans

  The bird would have seen the woman and child approach Riverside Drive, cross it, and find the walking trail that parallels the great Mississippi River. The pair’s journey would take a while and, after some time, the bird would see the man begin to pace, looking from time to time at the hotel’s grand entrances in consternation. After more time passed, the duck would see him walk away, unlock his car, and leave. When the man’s car began to move, the woman and child would be finding a park bench and settling down for a little rest. As he faded from sight, they would still be sitting comfortably on that bench, watching the river do what rivers have always done.

  The duck, who dived and swam for its supper, would have known that the rivers show different faces as you go deeper. The surface waters are riffled by the wind, and the direction the ripples go has no bearing on what the water beneath is doing. The deepest water hugs the bottom of the river and the underside of its bluffs. Its undercurrents tug at the carcasses of dead trees and the broken bellies of sunken boats.

  The deeper you go, the colder the river water grows. It wants to suck the heat from your blood. It wants to drown you. It wants to tug you downstream, deeper, until it makes you realize that you will not go on forever, but the river will.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  It had been a mistake for Faye to rush back to her car after taking Kali home, hurrying to place a phone call to the detective. She was a deliberate woman, usually, and she liked to gather a small mountain of facts before she acted on important matters. When the facts were there, though, she didn’t hesitate to share them and then to act. The details of Frida’s case had led her to an unsettling and unlikely conclusion, but facts were facts, so she’d laid her argument out for McDaniel and waited for his response.

  Now she was listening to him dismiss her ideas, using his years of experience as a bludgeon. She couldn’t compete with his experience, but that didn’t mean that she was wrong.

  “You think a serial killer killed Frida? Everybody thinks their case is the biggest and baddest, Faye,” he had said. “Everybody thinks they’re chasing a serial killer. This man may have killed people before. He may kill again. I agree that he’s dangerous. But I have no reason to think that he was the kind of deranged serial killer you see on TV.”

  McDaniel’s tone was respectful, more or less, but he was putting Faye in her place. He was the experienced detective and she was not. He was happy to use her to open communications with a community that distrusted him, but he didn’t want to consider her input.

  His voice was firm when he said, “The only thing special about this case is that she was buried alive.”

  Faye drove slowly as she talked, peering into the evening shadows on either side of this street where a dead woman had lived. They were deep and dark enough to hide anything or anyone. “Being buried alive is pretty special, don’t you think?”

  Her almost-obsolete cell phone only distorted McDaniel’s chuckle slightly as he said, “You got me there. I agree that it would be special if I thought he buried her alive on purpose, but we don’t know that he did. Maybe he got in a hurry because he heard you coming. There may even be a shred of evidence that he did hear you coming.”

  “What makes you think that? What evidence?”

  “Frida wasn’t raped and her purse was found nearby, with money still in the wallet. If he planned to rob her or molest her sexually, you interrupted him, so he covered her up and ran away.”

  Faye considered that a good thing, sort of, but its goodness was mostly counterbalanced by Frida’s death. “Maybe he wasn’t a rapist. What if he never intended to do anything but kill her? What if he is a serial killer and all he wanted was the experience of snuffing out her life?”

  “If I thought the Zodiac Killer was prowling around Sweetgum State Park, I would have brought the FBI into this way before now. If you really think some phantom killer is running around this part of the South, why haven’t you run home to Florida?”

  What could she say to McDaniel? Maybe the truthful answer was “I’m still here because of Kali.”

  Or maybe the right answer was, “Deep down, I don’t think I’m in any more danger now than I was when I agreed to do a job in a tough neighborhood.”

  The rock-bottom truth might even be “I need this job, my employees need this job, and I’m not scared enough to cancel it. Yet.”

  Instead of answering his question, she bounced it back at him. “If you were in my shoes, would you run back home to Florida?”

  McDaniel was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Well, we can’t exactly evacuate everyone in a five-mile radius of a crime scene, or even a one-mile radius, not even for a little while. We certainly can’t clear them all out indefinitely. And I do think the killer knew Frida and had it in for her, specifically. I honestly don’t think he’s prowling around those woods looking for somebody new to bludgeon. So what would I do in your shoes? Hmm…well, I do think I’d stay and do the job.”

  “Even if it means keeping five community college students within that five-mile radius? I’m responsible for them, you know.”

  His answer was quick and sure. “I’m sure you had them sign releases.”

  “Morally responsible. I’m the adult here, and I have to balance the good that this job is doing them, personally and financially, against any danger I’m putting them in.”

  “So you’re balancing a job that could put them on a path to an education and a lifetime of steady employment against a theoretical danger that comes from a killing that happened more than a mile away? Faye, you’re giving a chance to young people who haven’t had many of those. One of them lost a father to murder, right?”

  “Two. Richard and Stephanie.” Having lost her own father, Faye ached for them.

  “And one of them has a juvenile record?”

  “Davion. Jeremiah says he was arrested years ago for a bar brawl.” Faye didn’t like the way that this information stamped calm, thoughtful Davion with a label that said, “Dangerous,” so she hurriedly added, “But he hasn’t been in any trouble since.”

  “Faye, if you want to know the truth, I think you’re doing the Lord’s work. I say you keep these kids on the job. You were smart to move them to that motel downtown. Institute a buddy system, for sure. Murderer or not, you don’t want any of those kids prowling the Beale Street bars all alone. And I’ll do my part by sending officers to drive by your worksite and the hotel several times a day. You’d be amazed at the impact of the sight of a black-and-white on your average criminal.”

  “Thank you for that, but do you really think Frida was killed by an average criminal?” Faye felt compelled to disagree with that position, one more time and for the record. “I don’t think there was anything average about her murder.”

  It crossed her mind to ask if he’d be so sure that Frida was killed by an average everyday murderer-down-the-street if she’d died in a ritzier zip code, but she squelched that impulse.

  “Honestly? I think she was killed by a mean, vindictive ex-boyfriend. Or ex-husband. She had more than one mean, vindictive ex, so it may take me a while, but I’m going to find out which one killed her, and I’m going to nail his sorry ass to the wall. In the meantime, I think you and your crew should enjoy sunny Memphis in July. You couldn’t have come in October? Or May? It’s beautiful here in May, but I advise staying in your air-conditioned house in July.”

  “I can’t afford to do that. Amazingly enough, my phone company expects me to write them checks every July.”

  “Mine, too.”

  A factory outlet store near Laneer’s house had sold Faye a yellow dress in Frida’s size. It was the same sunny shade as the one the murdered woman had worn on her last night. The bodice was supported by slender straps, just like Frida’s had been. She had almost gotten a pair of strappy silver heels, but she’d remembered at the last minute that “open casket funeral” really meant “half-open casket fune
ral.” Frida’s body would only be visible from the waist up, so the shoes weren’t necessary, and Kali would never know if the skirt of the dress was all wrong. It just might be possible that this dress would fool her.

  Laneer met her on the front porch, so that Kali wouldn’t see her deliver this yellow dress. When Faye handed it to Laneer, still in the shopping bag, she said, “People will send a lot of flowers. Tell the funeral home to put some in the casket with her. You know—to cover up the dress as much as possible. If we’re lucky, Kali will never notice the difference.”

  She said good-bye, then turned back to the old man. “I forgot. There’s another dress in the bag, a black one for Kali. I went ahead and got it, because most little girls don’t own black dresses. Children like happy colors.”

  In her car, yet another dress waited in a second shopping bag, black and in Faye’s size, because she didn’t travel with funeral-appropriate clothes. As she opened her car door, one last thought occurred to her.

  “Laneer,” she called out. “The flowers. Tell the funeral home to use pink carnations in the casket with Frida. They’ll tell you that they won’t look good on a yellow dress, but you insist. They’re what Kali wants.”

  Faye was drifting into a troubled sleep when a ringing phone brought her back to a troubled reality. Her first thought was that Joe was calling to nag her to come home, but the voice that answered her was female. She threw on a robe and crept out into the hall, so that she could talk without waking Yvonna. Faye pretended she didn’t know that Yvonna was her new roommate because she had lost a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Yvonna really needed to learn to pick paper sometimes.

  Settling herself in the stairwell that had become her impromptu office, Faye said, “Sylvia? Is that you? Is something wrong? Is Kali okay?”

  “Kali’s fine. Everything’s fine. She’s stretched out on Laneer’s couch, sleeping like a baby. I think you tired her out with that walk and that trip to the fancy hotel restaurant. When she starts talking to me again, I’m going to get her to tell me all about it.”

  Faye didn’t want to ask, “If everything’s fine, then why on Earth are you calling me after midnight?” so she floundered for something friendlier to say.

  Sylvia didn’t wait for her to respond. She talked fast, like a woman with no time to waste, but then Sylvia always sounded that way. “I need for you to tell the police some things.”

  Faye still wasn’t sure yet why this merited a middle-of-the-night call, but Sylvia was talking about the police, so she must be getting to her point.

  “I can do that, Sylvia, but why don’t you tell the police yourself? It sounds like you know something important, so they’re going to have questions for you that I can’t answer. It’s way easier for you to do the talking.”

  “I don’t talk to the police.”

  “I’ve seen you talk to McDaniel. He’s not a bad guy.”

  “I answer questions from the police when they get asked. I know how to be polite and respectful, when I need to be, because it’s the people that act nasty who they remember. But I don’t offer them anything extra, and I sure don’t call up the police to pass the time of day.”

  This debate was going nowhere, and Faye hadn’t lived Sylvia’s life. Who was she to say whether the woman’s suspicion of police officers was warranted or not? If the woman had information that needed to be passed on to Detective McDaniel, the smart thing for Faye to do was to listen.

  “I’ll tell him whatever you want me to tell him, Sylvia.”

  “First of all, tell him that Mayfield and Linton ain’t as dumb as they look.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that Mayfield is smart when he wants to be smart. When he was in high school, he used those long arms and legs to be the best quarterback we ever had. Good grades, too. Woulda gone to college if his rap sheet didn’t scare off the scouts. Mayfield ain’t dumb. Dumb people make bad quarterbacks.”

  Faye wasn’t much of a sports fan, but this sounded true. “What about Linton? Was he an offensive lineman or something?”

  “Don’t know what he did in high school, but I know what he did after. Seems like he made a big score on some test the Navy gave him and they were gonna train him to do electrical work on nuclear submarines. He could’ve worked for them for his whole life, or he could’ve done his time and got out, ready to be an electrician. That’s a good job. You can be your own boss. Hire some people to help you. Build up a good business.”

  “Then why is Linton working at the convenience store?”

  “Couldn’t keep his fists to his self. The Navy only likes you to hurt people when they say so.”

  McDaniel was going to want some proof of the things Sylvia was saying, but Faye had no doubt that he could get it. Surely, he had underlings who could check the local high school yearbook for its football rosters.

  Sylvia wasn’t finished talking. McDaniel would be fit to be tied when he realized how much helpful information he couldn’t get because his badge scared people.

  “Tell him to talk to Arkansas. And Mississippi.”

  Faye let a beat of silence pass while she processed that statement. “Well, now, you’ve got me stumped. How is McDaniel supposed to talk to two whole states?”

  “To their police. To their sheriffs. Their highway patrol. Hell, I don’t know who’s who when it comes to people in uniforms with guns. Just tell him to talk to the people who are out there hunting for missing girls and pulling dead women out of dumpsters.”

  Faye fought back the memory of two hands thrusting up from the ground, grasping for help. There were people who saw things like that all the time.

  “What are you saying, Sylvia? Do you know of someone in particular? Someone who was killed? Someone missing?”

  “None of those things. I’m just saying that our policeman needs to talk to the other people who are looking. Or who should be looking.”

  “Who? It will help him do his job if you can tell me who.”

  Faye was shocked to hear Sylvia sobbing. She had been so calm, even when coming to terms with terrible news about a young woman she clearly cared about. Faye recognized the sound of someone who had been strong for other people until she just had nothing left.

  “Laneer is in his house, crying himself sick, because that detective called to tell him how Frida died.”

  “He got the coroner’s report? Since I was there with Laneer?”

  It had only been a few hours since Faye left Laneer’s house and McDaniel had spent some of that time talking to Faye. Since she doubted that the coroner had called at eleven p.m., McDaniel had known the cause of death when he spoke with Faye, and he had made it a point not to tell her. Maybe he’d known more than that and he was keeping it from her. This information rankled.

  “Yeah. You hadn’t been gone an hour.”

  “He must have called right after he hung up from talking to me.”

  “He didn’t tell you nothing about it, right? With you helping him every way you know how? And you wonder why I don’t talk to the police. Everything they say and everything they don’t say—it’s all a lie.”

  Faye’s mother had taught her to trust and even revere the police, telling her to run to them when she was in trouble. She felt that lifelong trust begin to crack. “Mississippi and Arkansas. What were you going to tell me about them?”

  “Tell the policeman to call the minister at Clay Creek Baptist Church in Corinth.”

  “Corinth, Mississippi?”

  “Yeah. My sister goes there, and they spent six weeks last year praying for a woman what never came back. Somebody buried her in the old graveyard out behind her own church, and they never did find out who done it. They ain’t used that cemetery since the Depression and nobody noticed that somebody’d dug an extra grave out there. Marked it with a big rock, he did, like people used to do when they didn’t have mon
ey for a headstone. Blended right in with the other old graves.”

  “How was she killed?”

  “That coroner said there hadn’t been no gun and no knife. She’d been beat with something, but he didn’t know what it was.”

  “Why do you think McDaniel should know about that case?” Faye asked, hoping the answer wasn’t that the poor woman in Mississippi had also been buried alive.

  “He told Laneer that the devil what killed Frida didn’t use a gun nor a knife. Said she was beat with something big and wide. And heavy. The way her skull was cracked and—”

  Sylvia choked and tried again. “And the way the marks on her face was curved, well, they make him think the bastard killed Frida with a shovel.”

  “The shovel he buried her with?”

  Another choking noise sounded and then, “Most likely. I thought we was going to lose Laneer when he found that out. He took to his bed. I know he’s awake in there, ’cause I hear him crying, but he won’t answer when I knock on the door. If he won’t come out tomorrow, Kali won’t know what’s wrong, but there ain’t no way we need to tell her every last little thing about what happened to her mama.”

  Faye agreed, without reservation. “What happened in Arkansas?”

  “Laneer’s second cousin knew about a woman south of Earle who went missing and turned up dead. Two years back, I think. Beat to death, and they never found the one that did it. Found her buried in a state park, and the killer had done a fine job of covering up the grave. Even laid out some grass seed. They only found her by accident. Some little kid picked that spot to dig a fort, and ain’t that a terrible thing?”